General Secretary Xi Jinping recently chaired a symposium in Chongqing on promoting large-scale development of the western region in the new era and delivered an important speech. He stressed the need to further form a new pattern of greater protection, greater openness, and high-quality development, enhance the region's overall strength and capacity for sustainable development, and thereby define the focus of our work and point out the way forward for us to strive to write a new chapter in the large-scale development of the western region within the course of Chinese modernization.

　　The western region holds a pivotal position in the overall situation of national reform, development, and stability. Advancing large-scale development of the western region to form a new pattern is a major decision and deployment made by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in coordinating the two overall situations at home and abroad. In March 2019, General Secretary Xi Jinping chaired the seventh meeting of the Central Committee for Comprehensively Deepening Reform, which reviewed and approved the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the Formation of a New Pattern in the Large-Scale Development of the Western Region in the New Era. Over the past five years, the western region's GDP has grown at an average annual rate of 4.9 percent, and solid strides have been made in high-quality development. On the new journey of building a strong country and national rejuvenation, further forming a new pattern of greater protection, greater openness, and high-quality development and better promoting high-quality development in the western region bear on the overall situation of Chinese modernization and are of important practical significance and far-reaching historical significance.

　　To write a new chapter in the large-scale development of the western region, we must firmly grasp high-quality development as the primary task. When industries thrive, all sectors thrive; when industries are strong, the economy is strong. We must persist in taking the development of industries with distinctive advantages as the main direction, firmly grasp innovation as the key driver, strengthen the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation with industrial innovation, develop emerging industries in light of local conditions, and accelerate the industrial transformation and upgrading of the western region. Security is the precondition for development, and development is the guarantee of security. We must uphold the coordination of development and security, enhance our capacity to safeguard security in key areas such as energy and resources, accelerate the building of a new energy system, make a number of nationally important energy bases bigger and stronger, and raise the level of water resource security. The people's happiness and well-being are the ultimate goal of promoting high-quality development. We must persist in organically combining the advancement of new urbanization with the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas, safeguard and improve people's livelihood in the course of development, and ensure that the fruits of large-scale development of the western region benefit the broad masses of the people even better. The western region is a beautiful homeland where all ethnic groups in China live together in harmony and develop together. We must persist in forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation, deeply advance the action of invigorating border areas and enriching the people in the new era, and earnestly safeguard ethnic unity and border stability.

　　Protecting the ecological environment means protecting productive forces, and improving the ecological environment means developing productive forces. The western region is an important ecological security barrier for our country and the source of many major rivers such as the Yangtze, the Yellow River, and the Lancang River. Ecological and environmental issues in the western region concern not only the western region itself but also the whole country and the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. To write a new chapter in the large-scale development of the western region, we must be guided by Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization and persist in supporting high-quality development with high-level protection. We must optimize the pattern of territorial space development and protection, strengthen the protection of ecological resources, deepen pollution prevention and control in key regions and key areas, vigorously promote energy-saving and carbon-reduction transformation of traditional industries, lay a solid green foundation for high-quality development, and build a firm national ecological security barrier.

　　The western region has a vast territory, abundant resources, and unique locational advantages, and it has embraced new development opportunities in the upsurge of comprehensively deepening reform and opening up in the new era. To write a new chapter in the large-scale development of the western region, we must persist in promoting large-scale development through greater openness and raise the level of opening up both domestically and externally. From vigorously advancing the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor in the western region to deeply integrating into the joint building of the Belt and Road; from promoting the high-quality development of pilot free trade zones to steadily expanding institutional opening up; from more proactively serving and aligning with major regional strategies to innovating mechanisms for connecting opening-up platforms in the eastern, central, and western regions... By persisting in reform without pause and opening up without stop, the driving force for high-quality development in the western region will surely become stronger and its space will surely become broader.

　　Those who act often succeed, and those who walk often arrive. Promoting the large-scale development of the western region is a systematic project and a long-term task that requires solid work and sustained efforts from all sides. Let us earnestly study, understand, and thoroughly implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech, consistently carry out the implementation of the Party Central Committee's policies and measures for promoting the large-scale development of the western region, maintain strategic resolve, be courageous in taking responsibility and making achievements, and push the large-scale development of the western region to new heights.